Wednesday, April 27, 2011

How do you feel about Barack Obama releasing his birth certificate today?

Let me tell you how I feel.

It was a big mistake.

The Birther movement was never about believing that Barry O wasn't born in this country. The people that whipped it up don't even believe it. Donald Trump certainly never believed it, nor could he care less. All the Donald cares about is who he can next swindle their life savings out of and the next underage girl he can defile. Birtherism is simply a mechanism by which Republican hacks can whip the dimwits into a frenzy of xenophobic fear and hatred.

Only a small group of people ever believed Obama was not born in this country, none of whom voted for him in the first place and none of whom would ever vote for him again.

Releasing his birth certificate can do nothing to change the way people think of him, it only gives credence to the birthers accusations by providing a serious response, thereby legitimizing their claims. It will not assuage their lying charges or silence them in any way. The charges are not and never have been worthy of response.

Letting the birth certificate question continue unanswered on the other hand, would have given daily proof to the rest of us, that they are nothing but black dirt, ignorant pig fuckers and that is a good and true thing.

All Barry has done today has let Republican dirty tricksters know they are getting to him and spur them on to even more extreme and ridiculous charges. See if I'm not right.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

All of a sudden, Paul Ryan is everywhere. It looks like he is going to be the Republican spokes model in their continuing fight with the Democrats over the budget, which will have deep deficits, no matter what either side does or who gets their way. He's an attractive figure for the Republicans. No divorces. No scandalous baggage. Not only is he young but he looks young. Hopefully he's SoCon enough to satisfy the Republican base but not so much that he scares away independents.

That's a good thing for the Republicans and maybe for Paul. He's going to be getting a huge amount of free publicity and ample opportunity to blame Barry O for whatever happens. They need a guy just like him right now, unless they want to go with one of the sickly current crop of contenders in 2012. He seems to be shaping up as a Republican Howard Dean. What do you think?

He could easily run for President. It's possible that he could win the Republican nomination, simply because there won't be another viable candidate. Who knows, he might even win the general election. He'd be a sure fire big donation getter.

The problem is, what would he do once he gets elected President? So far, that's been Barry's biggest problem. He's doing OK and in the current environment, that's all anybody can hope for but it may not be enough. The people want a guy who's bullet proof, walks on water and can bring back the Golden Age. It's just my opinion but I don't think that's likely to happen. Do you?

Monday, April 18, 2011

Recently when making any kind of fresh salsa or pico de gallo, I have been adding green papaya. I have long been looking for a good additive to fresh Mexican style hot sauces. Often they are just too much and need something to mellow them out and tone them down a little. A lot of cooks use tomatillo for this purpose but I don't like tomatillo. I've tried a lot of different stuff, like celery, cucumber, jicama, etc., with varying success. Often it's good but never great. You can either shred it fine or pulverize it in a food processor.

Green papaya is great. It absorbs and combines all the flavors from the other ingredients, lightens it up, and creates a more subtle flavor. It's great right after it's made but even better after several hours to a full day of melding.

I can get green papaya here in the Asian markets all the time. It grows just fine in SoCal and Mexico. It's cheap. I got on to green papaya because it is the basis of many of my favorite, spicy, South East Asian salads that feature salty, fermented crustacean products, lime juice and fiery hot chiles, requiring a lot of buffering.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The 2012 elections are not going to be about what the majority of the people want. The majority of the people have no idea what they want. It's questionable that they ever do.

There are a lot more Democrats than Republicans. That's been true for awhile. It's going to be increasingly true in the future unless something changes drastically. Few Democrats will likely cross over vote, that's even more true of Republicans. There are a lot of independents though, maybe more than ever before. Unless there are attractive third party or independent candidates, probably more than half of independent voters will align with Republicans than Democrats.

Come election time 2012, I bet I will be able to predict the outcomes of a lot of the races pretty well. It's going to depend on who's mad and how mad. Mad people are more likely to vote. If only the Republicans are really mad, the races will be close but they will lose. If only the Democrats are mad, they will win decisively. If everybody is mad, it will be a very close race but I believe the Democrats will retain the Presidency and make modest gains otherwise. Republicans have to stay mad, they have to convince independents to get mad and they can't allow Democrats to be mad on the first Tuesday in November. That's the only way they can win. It may not be that hard, they're half way there already.

The Republicans have been whipping their troops into a frenzy since the medrassa mud boy won the Presidency in 2008. They do not have time to take a breather before 2012. They're going to have to keep the troops riled and get independents foaming as well. Their biggest problem isn't even that. In order to get enough independent votes, they are going to have to field a slate of candidates, virtually anywhere they want to win, who are not socially conservative. Social conservatives make up no more than 30% of the total vote, virtually all registered Republicans. Many independent voters have sympathy for fiscally conservative ideals, even some Democrats do but they all think the Socons are wacky, making them unsuitable to govern, no matter what their stand on other issues. The Socons, who now make up a majority of Republican primary voters may well insist on candidates drawn from their number. If it was hard core liberals in charge on the Democratic side, they would insist on the same thing.

There are three issues that nobody should fuck with if they want to get elected in 2012, abortion, the poor and illegal immigrants. My feeling is that both sides would like to throw these issues at each other as they have in the past but there is no way that they can do it to advantage. They are going to agree that abortions are fine but won't be paid for by the government. The poor and illegal immigrants don't vote so they're going to get thrown under the bus.

The wars aren't going to be an issue either. Both sides have so much blood on their hands that they're just going to pretend they don't exist.

Besides fiscal austerity, which is, always has been and always will be, all hand job and no cunt by both sides, it's going to be interesting to see what big issues will shake out. Don't ask me, I got no idea. I think they may still be looking hard for that long form birth certificate right up until election eve, 2012. What do you think, Bub.